A Rockhoof and a Hard Place Review · 4:42pm Sep 15th, 2018
Well, pony is back on Netflix, all seven seasons of it. And now it's just a matter of waiting for the U.S. to catch up on episodes now that Australia and Canada have aired the last episodes of Season 8 early. With Season 8 bobbing up and down in quality but finally seeming to be on a consistent track after the last two episodes, Kaita Mpambara who gave us "Horse Play" returned to write this episode. Since "Horse Play" remains the best episode of Season 8 so far, was Kaita able to follow up on her success or simply show that her first episode was a case of beginner's luck? Well, let's find out.
We begin with Rockhoof in his village, now a historical site, and he's apparently become Scottish. Anyway, he tries to help out, but Professor Fossil doesn't like how he's making it hard to preserve things. But in all honesty, she and the other archeologists are wrong to just go on ignoring Rockhoof and digging away at his village. It's the only home he ever knew, and he needs time to adjust and cope with the fact that he's the last survivor of his village. Just because it has historical value doesn't mean they can uproot Rockhoof's only way of life. In fact, why not use Rockhoof to determine what has value and therefore is worth preserving? So anyway, Professor Fossil pleads with Twilight to take Rockhoof, and Twilight decides that even though Rockhoof is having trouble adjusting to modern times he's totally a good fit for her school. Once again it seems like whenever the focus is directly on the school, everyone looks stupid and incompetent, and the only reason why I can think the writers keep doing this is because they hate the concept Hasbro forced onto them, and think that somehow if they make it look bad Hasbro will drop it (I would much rather they put their foot down and say no, Hasbro would be hard pressed to justify firing its whole writing staff just because they refuse to do one concept).
So Rockhoof is put in charge of a class with no supervision at all, and of course he starts to rip up the school because of that while he's telling his tale. It's interesting to see Yona take such an interest in him, but she admits she looks up to him because he's like a yak, and they don't really develop it beyond that. Only Sandbar also seems fascinated by Rockhoof, solely because he's a pillar. Twilight and Applejack take Rockhoof to try and talk to him about not destroying everything, but then Rockhoof sees flames and thinks a nearby building is on fire, so he rushes to recuse the students and put out the flames. But it was actually just Spike and Smolder have a fire breathing competition, and somehow no one thought to tell Rockhoof about that. Because of that, Rockhoof becomes convinced he doesn't belong at the school. Then Rainbow Dash insists they've never given Rockhoof a chance to be a hero, never mind the fact that he was trying to be that when he saw the flames. And we get a montage of the mane six explaining how Rockhoof was given many other tasks to do and managed to botch them all, whether it be blurting out Cranky has a rash in a very embarrassing place, applying too much pressure to Bulk Biceps, or giving Zecora an entire swarm of bees. Really though, I don't see why Rockhoof wouldn't fit in at the spa. Bulk Biceps already gives very tough massages and constantly smashes walls.
They decide to take Rockhoof to visit the other pillars in the hopes that they'll be able to help him out. Flash Magnus is now a drill sergeant for the Royal Guard (missed an opportunity to have him be with Shining Armor, I might have even liked to see them ellaborate on whether he's related to Flash Sentry), Mistmane works in the Crystal Empire's garden, Somnambula is a motivational speaker in her village, Meadowbrook lives in her home but it's now also a business for her to sell her various potions to those in need, and Stygian is an author who's penned his own auto-biographies. Of course we all know Starswirl is busy traveling.
At last it seems like Rockhoof has found a place to call his own, serving in the Hippogriff royal navy. But he misreads the stars because Twilight doesn't think to tell him that stars can change over time, and causes a ship to crash into some rocks. And then we get to what might be the most questionable part of the whole episode. Rockhoof decides he has no place in the new world and wants to be turned to stone, so he asks Twilight to cast the spell to turn him into a statue. Twilight at first protests and says no, but then she decides on a whim to just do so anyway because it'll only be temporary until she can figure out a place for Rockhoof, and asks Spike to cover her class for him. You know, if Twilight really knows the stone statue spell, even if she can't make it permanent, why hasn't she used it on Discord after all the times he's acted like a jerk and disregarded friendship? With Tirek back in Tartarus and the Elements of Harmony back, Discord really has no excuse to be allowed to keep getting away with his bad behavior.
Yona is horrified when she learns what Rockhoof is going to do and comes rushing to see him, revealing that she idolizes him and wants to grow up to be just like him. She's able to talk him into telling the rest of his tale outside the castle, and that's enough for Twilight to appoint him guardian of tales, and now the whole school wants to hear his stories. But what happens once Rockhoof runs out of stories to tell? He goes right back to not having a place in the world and struggling to adapt, so basically he just gets to kick the can down the road. Not really a resolution so much as it is a delay in the hopes of forgetting about the issue until it crops up again.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Honestly, it's just very underwhelming. It tries to tackle an issue it clearly has no idea how to actually resolve (Rockhoof's struggles to adapt to the modern world after being gone for so long) and it feels like an episode that was done solely to explain "Where are the pillars now?" that we could've and should've gotten much sooner in the season (like say the premiere or right after it). We have far too many people in real life as it is who cling to outdated or old ways of thinking that don't work in today's world, and they struggle much like Rockhoof does to find a way to make sense of the changing times. Sadly, as we've seen all too often, those people often react with fear and try to block progress because they're not willing to change. But like it or not, nothing stays the same forever. It is human nature to change and adapt as necessary. The purpose of history is to learn from past mistakes so as not to repeat them. Throughout the whole episode, Rockhoof never tries to adapt to the world around him, and even after he gets told he can't do what he used to do, he just keeps going ahead and doing it. The episode may claim it was about comedy, but when we see the actual consequences of Rockhoof's actions they stop being funny. As nice it was to see Yona admire Rockhoof, that was only really key to the resolution of the episode. A much better concept would've been starting from Yona's admiration of Rockhoof and learning from him about how he adapted to the modern world, which Yona sees parallels to her own struggles to fit in with pony culture. Judging this episode on what we got though, I have to give it a disappointing D+, putting it below even "The Break-Up Break Down" and "Friendship University" which could've been something greater if they'd had time to think about what was really important to their stories, and only above "The Mean Six" which was a pointless waste of a concept that much like this episode feels like an afterthought done when the writers hastily realized there were other concepts they wanted to explore.
Well, maybe next week things will get back on track with "What Lies Beneath" in which the students discover a hidden part of the school while studying for an exam. Kind of makes me wonder what secrets the school could have, we know there's already one secret passage.
For me, while it's not a great episode, it's still decent enough that I'd much rather watch it over Yakkity Sax, Fake It Till You Make It, Break Up Breakdown, Grannies Gone Wild, and Friendship University.
Though it did drop a few places from where I had it after seeing it the first time, since I realized that i didn't find the amusing moments in it as amusing as the ones from NonCompete Clause (which I guess has become the designated "Episode I enjoy more than most" of the season), Horse Play, or Maud Couple.
Awesome
Horse Play? Really? What about The Hearth's Warming Club? The End In Friend? Road To Friendship? Arguably The Washouts?
4938159 I'm sorry, but "Horse Play" for all its faults (and it does have them) was the Celestia episode fans had been waiting eight seasons for, and it finally addressed Twilight's idol worship of Celestia and the dangers associated with it. Plus it has Applejack as the straight mare for the first time in quite a while, and she honestly plays that role way better than Starlight.
What was the point of this episode? Haven't we seen something close to this idea before? XD
And wouldn't you rather have the DVDs of MLP instead of Netflix? Cause this removal thing could happen again. 😅
4938167
Just cause it's an episode people have been waiting for doesn't mean it's good. It's been addressed before. Just in different ways. Also, that isn't a big part of an episode (the Applejack thing).
4938173 The Season DVDS have taken forever to come out and haven't even in HD from what I hear. The only reason I bought the movie DVD was because I got sick of waiting for Netflix to add it, it took way too long to be added.
I finally got to catch up after a few weeks. Seeing this episode, I guess Kaita's writing was indeed beginners luck.
4938316
That's true XD It was said that the MLP show would be moving to Amazon and Hulu, so that's another way to get them. 😊
4938512 Only the movie, it's now been clairifed. I suspect Hasbro may have been hoping to shop for a better deal on those networks, but they demanded too high a price. Like how Hasbro kept the Netflix license in limbo during early 2015 while negotiating with Discovery Family, they probably wanted a better network but no one was willing to give them a good deal.
4938784
Lots of these big networks are like that XD